1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a remote medical technology for transmitting data between a practitioner and a remote patient by using a network.
2. Description of the Related Art
Despite an increased lifetime expectancy resulting from improved medical technologies, what is called aging of society, that is, an increase in the ratio of the number of aged people to the population, becomes a global problem. In the aging society, the incidence of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, and rheumatism increases necessarily. It is a great burden or pain on patients with chronic diseases to go to hospital for a long period of time, while practitioners must spend too long a time in treating such patients to undertake more critical treatments.
In these circumstances, remote medical systems using computer communications have been proposed. In a typical example, a patient terminal comprises a computer having sensors such as a clinical thermometer and a hemadynamometer connected thereto to communicate a remote computer possessed by a practitioner. Thus, the patient can make basic measurements at home without going to hospital and is required to visit the practitioner only if the patient must truly be treated, thereby reducing the burdens on both patient and practitioner.
However, the number of chronic-disease patients to be treated by one practitioner has been increasing rapidly, so that the above described on-to-one communications do not necessarily improve any substantial medical efficiency in that the practitioner must spend an amount of time treating each patient.
In view of these conventional situation, it is an object of the present invention to provide a medical information system that can-improve the medical efficiency without making any burden for the practitioner.
One aspect of the present invention is a medical information system, comprising a patient terminal device, a server, and an administrator terminal device, characterized in that:
said patient terminal device, said server, and said administrator terminal device are connected together on a network;
said patient terminal device includes sensors having functions for measuring information used as indices of the condition of a patient""s health; means for transferring measured data obtained by said sensors to an interior of said patient terminal device; means for transferring said measured data from said sensors to said server via the network; and means for accepting control information from said server, and has a function of taking action based on said control information;
said server includes means for transmitting the control information to said patient terminal device; and means for storing and sorting out said measured data transferred from said patient terminal device; and
said administrator terminal includes means for viewing said measured data stored and sorted out in said server.
Another aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said server has a function for managing information unique to a user using said patient terminal device and can supply individual data or individual control information to, said patient terminal device based on the information unique to said user.
Still another aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said sensors comprises at least one of a clinical thermometer, a hemadynamometer, a pulsimeter, a blood sugar level meter, a saturated blood oxygen densitometer, scales, a fat meter, a stethoscope, an electrocardiograph, a still image pickup device, an animation image pickup device, and a spirometer.
Yet still another aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said server possesses predetermined schedule information for individual patients and transmits a request to said patient terminal device in accordance with the schedule information, said patient terminal device takes action depending on the request.
Still yet another aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said server compares said schedule information with measured data transferred from said patient terminal device in terms of time to change said schedule.
A further aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that if the measured data is transmitted from the patient terminal ahead of a scheduled time and the difference in time is within an allowable range, said server changes the schedule to avoid said request corresponding to the measured data.
A still further aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that if the measured data is transmitted from said sensors before said request has been transmitted and the difference in time between a measuring time and said subsequently transmitted corresponding request is within an allowable range, said patient terminal device does not take action depending on the request.
A yet further aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said patient terminal device possesses schedule information on the patient transmitted from said server, to take action in accordance with the schedule information.
A still yet further aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said patient terminal device compares said schedule information with the measured data transferred from said sensors in terms of time to change said schedule.
An additional aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that if the measured data is transmitted to the patient terminal device ahead of a scheduled time and the difference in time is within an allowable range, said patient terminal device changes the schedule to avoid said action corresponding to the measured data.
A still additional aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that in the case when said patient terminal device does not receive measured data from the sensors within a predetermined time after taking action, it takes action for warning that the patient has forgotten to make measurements.
A yet additional aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said server possesses threshold values for data that depend on the condition of each patient""s health and has a function for transmitting a signal to said administrator terminal device via a network in the case when the measured data transferred from said patient terminal device deviate from said threshold values.
A still yet additional aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said patient terminal device possesses threshold values for data that depend on the condition of each patient""s health and has a function for transmitting a signal to said administrator terminal device via a network in the case when the measured data transferred from said patient terminal device deviate from said threshold values.
A supplementary aspect of the present invention is the medical information system, characterized in that said server stores at least part of software driving said patient terminal device or/and said administrator terminal device has a function operating when said software is updated, to automatically update said software in said patient terminal device or/and said administrator.